Married to the Viscount (35 page)

Ah, yes, his war wounds. She’d forgotten.

He gave a grim laugh. “Though I suppose that would enhance your revenge—to leave a scarred and naked man standing pathetically unfulfilled in his own study.”

Her heart twisted in her chest. Time to end this. “Or…” she said as she walked over to the door, “we could move the game to a more comfortable place, like your bedchamber, where I could kiss your scars at my leisure to make them better.”

She turned the key.

When Spencer heard the click of the lock, he assumed she meant to leave him here. Then her words registered. He whirled toward her, hardly able to believe his ears.

But there was no mistaking her open smile. She’d forgiven him. She wanted him. She was giving him a chance.

Without a word, he stalked up to haul her into his arms and kiss her with all the feverish need he’d suppressed for a week. Her eager response sealed her fate. He would make her his wife in truth tonight, and to hell with tomorrow.

By the time he drew back, the violence of his need had him reeling and her swaying on her feet. “Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered. He reached past her to open the door, then stuck his head out, relieved to see that nobody was around now except a sleeping footman at the end of the hall nearest the entrance.

“Since I have no intention of dressing and giving you a chance to change your mind, my darling,” he went on, “we’ll have to take the back stairs to my bedchamber. Just in case any of the servants are still up. It would be embarrassing to be caught like this.”

“Embarrassing for you, maybe,” she said in a husky murmur. “I’m fully dressed.”

“Not for long,” he promised, reaching for her gown.

With a giggle, she darted through the door and raced pell-mell for the back stairs. He swore as he raced after her, but
she didn’t slow her steps until she’d passed through the door into the stairwell. When she hesitated to catch her bearings, he caught up with her. Before she could escape, he dragged her gown off and tossed it over his shoulder.

But when he reached for her petticoat, too, she broke free and ran laughing up the stairs ahead of him. He followed more slowly, though he couldn’t resist calling out, “I don’t mind if you run, my dear, as long as you’re naked by the time I catch up to you.”

Peals of laughter drifted down to him, then were cut off as she disappeared through the door that opened into the upstairs hall. When it occurred to him that she could lock him out of his bedchamber if she decided to really torment him, he quickened his pace. By the time he’d reached his room and burst through the unlocked door, she’d dispensed with her petticoat and was stripping off her second stocking.

Dropping the stocking, she rose with a welcoming smile. He halted, his mouth going dry at the sight of her clad only in her chemise. She still wore that damned turban, but the rest of her…

Good God in heaven, she was choice. Her sheer chemise, a fragile wisp of muslin, clung to her breasts. Mysterious shadows on the fabric hinted at her nipples and the triangle of hair between her legs. Framed by the golden hangings and oak posts of his bed, she looked as erotic as any wanton in his private peep-show boxes. Except for one thing.

“Take it off,” he rasped.

Her gaze grew sultry as she reached for the chemise ties.

“No, not that. I mean…yes, that, but first that nasty turban.”

“Nasty?” She reached up to unpin it. “You don’t like my turban?”

“I loathe it,” he said earnestly.

Looking perplexed, she removed it. “Why? I figured you’d
find it more acceptable than my other style, the one you claimed made me look like a ladybird.”

When she went a step further and unpinned her hair, letting the mass of it drop like a curtain of ebony silk about her shoulders, his pulse beat feverishly. “Is that why you wore it?” He strode up to yank the turban from her hands and throw it aside. “One more way to rub my nose in my crimes?”

“No, I really thought you’d prefer it.”

As some of what she’d said earlier came back to him, his eyes narrowed. “Like you thought I would prefer your refined manners and your coldness?”

“Yes. Or at least admire and respect me for them. That’s all I wanted.”

Lifting his hand to her hair, he wound a hank of the petal-soft strands about his hand and kissed them. “So that wasn’t a punishment, either.”

She shook her head, the skin between her eyebrows puckering in a tiny frown. “The punishment was supposed to come when you realized I’d become the viscountess you wanted. Then I was going to ‘rub your nose’ in the fact that you’d thrown me away because you thought I wasn’t good enough.”

A low chuckle escaped his lips. “Well, you certainly showed me. Just not the way you’d planned.” He cradled her head in his free hand. “I missed you, Abby.”

She stared at him, bemused. “I never went anywhere.”

“Yes, but you were different. I missed your teasing and your shy smiles. I missed the—how did you put it?—naive American with the thoughtless tongue, who trailed after me like a lovesick puppy.” He ran his fingers through the shimmering silk of her hair. “I’m going to say this once and for all—there was never anything wrong with you.”

“Spencer—” she began, a skeptical look on her face.

“I mean it. I only complained about your hair and your gown
before the ball because they made me desire you too much. I thought that if you dressed more like an Englishwoman, I wouldn’t spend every waking moment aching to bed you.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Did it work?”

Chuckling, he cupped her breast through her chemise. “Does it look like it worked? No, it just made me want my wild American rose back. And the more you cultivated the English variety, the more you drove me insane.”

“But if you thought I was fine the way I was before, then why—”

He halted her question with a kiss. He knew what she would ask and knew what he should answer, but he was selfish enough not to want to ruin this. Better to make love to her so thoroughly that perhaps the truth wouldn’t matter when he told her afterward.

Ignoring his conscience, which screamed that he was being unfair not to tell her now, he lost himself in the warm velvet of her mouth, the sheer pleasure of her embrace.

When he drew back, her eyes were alight with mischief. “You’re still wearing your drawers, Lord Ravenswood. And as I recall…”

Swiftly, he stepped back and stripped down to nothing. Thank God the fire was behind him—he doubted she had enough light to see the scars on his left flank. And when she stared at his cock, then jerked her gaze up with a blush, he realized her maidenly modesty would work in his favor as well.

“Your turn.” He reached up to unfasten her chemise and push it off her shoulders. In two tugs, he had it pooled at her feet, baring her completely to his hungry gaze.

As he skimmed his hand up the lush fullness of her hips to her sweetly slender waist and then higher to beneath the full breasts that he ached so badly to touch, she stammered, “I-I guess I’m darker than most English women.”

Only the need to reassure her kept his hot lust in check.
“No darker than an Italian.” Smoothing his thumbs over her rose-brown nipples, he exulted when they tightened into buds. He shot her a wicked smile. “And you know what they say about Italian women.”

“No, what?” She sucked in a breath as he swept his other hand back down past her golden belly to stroke the riotous black curls between her thighs.

“That they’re passionate. That they revel in a man’s caress.” When he delved deep to find her petals already well nectared, he smiled. Drawing his hand up, he showed her his glistening finger. “The way you do. I know half a dozen Englishmen who’d give their eyeteeth for a passionate wife, no matter what color her skin.”

Though she blushed, her eyelids drooped in a sultry look. “Then come make me your wife, my lord.”

No maidenly reluctance for his Abby. Like the wild rose he’d craved for so long, she reached up to twine her arms about his neck and pull his head down for her kiss.

He met it feverishly, stabbing his tongue inside the open bud of her mouth. Without breaking the kiss, he backed her toward the bed and tumbled her down upon it. Covering her with his body, he nudged her thighs apart with his knee so he could settle his legs between them. Then he returned to caressing the dewy flesh hidden in her sweet curls.

She gasped when he slipped two fingers inside her slick passage. She was so deliciously wet he just wanted to bury his raring cock inside her. But she was a virgin, and he must take it slow. So he settled for plundering her with his fingers as he dropped his mouth to ravish her breasts. He sucked one, then the other, drunk with the fragrance so uniquely hers.

At first she cradled his head against her, but as he drove his fingers over and over inside her hot satin, she repaid the caress by dancing her hand along his flank to grasp his erection.

He groaned aloud. The first stroke of her eloquent hand
was already more than he could bear. “I want to be inside you, darling.” He lifted his head from her breast. “Guide me inside you.”

Her hand stilled. “I-I don’t know how.”

Slowly he withdrew his fingers from between her legs. “Let my staff take the place of my fingers. Lift your knees and guide me in. I don’t want to hurt you more than necessary.” He gazed down at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “You do know that—”

“Yes. It’s all right.” Her teasing smile reassured him. “Mama told me everything. She said the man must break through a woman’s innocence to harvest the pleasure the way a bear breaks through a hive to harvest the honey.”

“That explains why beehive and honey pot came to refer to a woman’s privates,” he said wryly. “But please tell me bees don’t fly out whenever a man deflowers a virgin.”

“Don’t you know?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never taken a woman’s innocence, darling.”

She laughed. “Well then, there’s only one way to find out what happens, isn’t there?” She pulled on his cock, and he clamped down the urge to thrust into her hand. Instead he let her draw him in until his tip brushed the slick folds he craved.

When she looked uncertain of what to do next, he brushed her hand aside. Trying to go slowly, he entered her. But as her silky sweet heat engulfed him, it was damned difficult not to plunge in to the very root. “My God, Abby, that’s good,” he said in a guttural voice. “You can’t imagine what it feels like to be inside you.”

“You can’t imagine what it feels like to have you there,” she said dryly.

Nothing the game smile that grew stiffer the farther he inched inside her, he paused to let her adjust to him. But it took every ounce of his control. When she wriggled beneath him, probably seeking a more comfortable position, he thought he’d ex
plode right then. Especially when it made him slip even further into her snug honey pot.

Then he came up squarely against her virginal obstruction. His gaze locked with hers, but before she could tighten her muscles in fearful anticipation, he muttered, “Hold back the bees,” and broke through in one plunge, planting himself so deeply inside her, he thought he could feel her beating heart.

Though she gasped, she didn’t wail or cry or any of the things he feared a virgin might do. If anything, she looked intrigued. “No bees, my lord.”

“Thank God,” he muttered as he fought for mastery over his raging need.

Then she drew his head down for a kiss, and he lost all sense of place and time and control. He didn’t even realize he’d begun moving until her hands tightened in his hair.

Slow down
, he told himself.
Keep it easy
.

As if that were possible. It was his beautiful Abby beneath him, his wonderful Abby dragging her open mouth along his shoulder, his teasing Abby kissing the chest muscles rigid from the effort of holding himself off her. Her petal-soft lips only increased his need.

“Stop…kissing…me,” he commanded, now barely able to leash his control. “Or I’ll…never hold out.”

“Until what?” Her eyes gleamed as she leaned up to run her tongue over one of his taut nipples.

“Until you can…find pleasure…in this, too.”

She laughed, wildly, happily. “No reason to hold out.” Digging her fingernails into his upper arms, she clung to him like a vine. “Having you make me yours is pleasure enough.”

“No, it’s not nearly enough.” Reaching back, he tugged her leg up. “Wrap your legs…about my waist. It will feel better for you.”

Her eyes shone with curiosity, but she entwined him in those delicious legs of hers. The shift in position planted him
even farther inside her, if that were possible, and his need grew so intense, he could scarcely hold back his release.

He pounded hard, grinding against the tender center of all her pleasure, determined to make her share his excitement.

She gasped. “Heavens…that’s…oh, my…”

A laugh tore from him. “Better?”

“Lord, yes…Spencer…dear heaven…Spencer…”

Her head twisted from side to side as her legs gripped his waist, sucking him in until he could feel her muscles start to tighten and her breath quicken to a ragged cadence.

“You’re my wife now,” he rasped. “You won’t leave me.”

“Never,” she vowed. Then she convulsed around him and cried, “Spencer…oh, Lord…I love you!”

That drove him over the edge. With a strangled cry of his own, he thrust deeply to spill his seed inside her. Her “I love you” thundered in his head as he poured himself into her. Her “I love you” echoed through his taut muscles as he collapsed atop her.

Oh, God, now he had to deal with the “I love you” he did not deserve.

Chapter 21

It is not always wise to know the secrets of one’s employer. Some secrets are better left private.

Suggestions for the Stoic Servant

A
s Abby lay with Spencer draped across her in a heap of warm, fragrant male, she wondered if it might be possible to die of happiness. Certainly her heart felt near to bursting with her joy.

She smiled against the bergamot-scented cheek that lay so close to hers. No, she wouldn’t allow herself to die. Not now that she finally had Spencer for her own.